Customer front margin

December 22, 2013 – 12:21 pm

Are Your Sales Reps Spending Too Much Time in Front of Customers?

This just in: salespeople are spending less time actually selling to customers, and more time on internal activities, than they were just five years ago. But before you pine for the “good old days” when reps spent more time in the customer’s office than in yours, what if we told you that having your reps spend less time face-to-face with your customers might actually be a good thing?

At SEC Solutions, we’ve been tracking how reps spend their time since 2003. Our B2B Sales Index contains data on the sales process activities and time signatures of more than 10, 000 sales reps across all major geographic markets and industries. Recently, we took a look at how the time signature of sales reps has changed over the past five years.

When we compare rep time spend today with what it looked like five years ago, it’s clear that the sales world has undergone a dramatic shift. Time spent on pre-sales and post-sales activities are both up by 15%. Meanwhile, time spent on non-sales (i.e., admin) work is up a whopping 21%. And all of this has come at the expense of actual selling time in front of the customer, which is down a full 26%.

Where has the time gone? When we dig into the discrete activities within each of these areas, we find that reps are spending less time making sales presentations to customers and less time negotiating and closing deals. But they’re spending more time getting themselves and their organizations ready for those presentations, strategizing with their sales managers, specialists, and subject matter experts on specific deals.

Before and after the sale, reps are also spending more time planning. Within the pre-sales category, for instance, they’re spending more time creating sales plans and vetting prospective customers. And, in the post-sales area, they’re spending more time gathering customer feedback (i.e., win-loss analysis), updating their account plans and educating end users.

It's Interesting...

In an open-book contract, the buyer and seller of work/services agree on (1) which costs are remunerable and (2) the margin that the supplier can add to these costs. The project is then invoiced to the customer based on the actual costs incurred plus the agreed...